Toughest Match, Best Performance

June 16, 2018

By: Bryan Giese

Torrent Men Give Their All In Defeat

In front of their home crowd, on a beautiful night for soccer, the Torrent men showed their best performance of the season. In a match that was technically sound from both sides, it was going to be a matchup of who could score first. Detroit City would unfortunately net the first goal of the match and hang on for the 0-1 road victory.

“This was by far our best game of the season,” stated Coach Davi afterwards. “We needed to be up by a goal or two in the game, and then start the second half.”

The Torrent began the match in complete control. They applied pressure to the backline that led to turnovers and chances for the boys in blue. Andrew Wiedabach returned from injury to have a number of opportunities. His play at the forward position complimented that of Mark Hutchinson well. Together they moved the defenders into space that allowed Peter Raymonds and Isaac Pereyra options.

Peter Raymonds Created Chances

Raymonds provided the Torrent fans one of his best efforts of the season. He showed speed with the ball coming down the wing which led to a number of quality crosses into the box. Additionally, his speed allowed his midfield teammates to play through balls to him that led to quality 1v1 opportunities for him.

In the first half Raymonds would have a touch on a ball played over the top of the backline. The goalkeeper for DCFC would manage to get to the ball just a moment before Raymonds could corral it for what could have been an easy tap in goal.

The second half would bring a goal for Raymonds that was called off by the assistant referee. Raymonds found himself in a familiar situation; streaking up the right wing after beating the left back with a touch that would leave the defender chasing. Raymonds would send the ball toward the back post beating the goalkeeper. The ball caromed off the far post, came back across the goal mouth to find the inside of the near post before it was grabbed by the defeated keeper.

“A pure goal that the linesman says is not a goal, it’s frustrating,” stated Coach Davi.

The Return Of Stuart Grable

Friday night did bring something for Torrent fans to smile about, the return of Stuart Grable. Back in the starting 11 for the first time since early May, Grable made a definite impact to the midfield. Grable saw action for about 55 minutes, bottling up any chances the visitors had to come through the middle easily.

Grable and the rest of the team put forth a great effort against one of the best teams in the conference. They will have some time to regroup and do it again when they travel to Detroit for their next match on July 1st.